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The question is whether even $20,000 is sufficient motivation for someone living that kind of lifestyle to return to work. There's an old parable about a fisher

The question is whether even $20,000 is sufficient motivation for someone living that kind of lifestyle to return to work. There's an old parable about a fisherman taking on debt to start a business to grow a fishing fleet so that he can eventually sell the business and retire to spend his days fishing. The paradox at the center of UBI goes like this: by definition, UBI would pay out an equal, base minimum to everybody; it cannot pay out different amounts to different people. That base minimum will be a comfortable minimum to some (who will spend their days playing video games or similar) and an uncomfortable minimum to others (who will choose to work to earn beyond the UBI). Where do you draw the line? Should UBI be a comfortable minimum for 50% of the population? 20%? Less? How many people do you "write off" from participating in the economy? If the number is too low, and UBI doesn't really provide enough people with enough money to live a basic lifestyle, have you really made a difference at all with UBI?

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> The question is whether even $20,000 is sufficient motivation for someone living that kind of lifestyle to return to work. Suppose that it's not, at scale. Then the work still needs to be done, so wage rise until it is enough for enough people. That seems like more of a benefit than a problem. > There's an old parable about a fisherman taking on debt to start a business to grow a fishing fleet so that he can eventually sell the business and retire to spend his days fishing. That's kind of the point. You want to go fishing but you don't have a boat. Boats are expensive and you don't have enough money. So you borrow money to buy five fishing boats so you can make enough back to own one of them outright. Then you do and you can go fishing. If you give the fisherman the first boat to begin with, he doesn't go out and build a fleet, but he's still a fisherman. But there is nothing wrong with being a fisherman. This is the basic trade off in having social programs at all instead of pure ruthless capitalism. Presumably the real problem is with the people who choose to do things that are totally useless/harmful rather than the people who choose to be fishermen. But is that really a novel problem? Is it "optimal" for people to go home after work and play video games instead of working more? What about developing video games? What about growing tobacco, or mining coal, or building bombs? There are a lot more counter-productive things than sitting in a room and effectively doing nothing. > How many people do you "write off" from participating in the economy? If the number is too low, and UBI doesn't really provide enough people with enough money to live a basic lifestyle, have you really made a difference at all with UBI? Your assumption seems to be that the purpose of a UBI is to provide people with a basic lifestyle with zero supplemental income. But it doesn't need to do that at all. There is no inherent requirement that it provide any given level of support. It would be a great improvement if all it did was provide exactly the same level of support as existing welfare, but provided it in cash instead of with strings attached, and had no phase out so that low and middle income working people received a little more at the expense of the rich. It could provide enough to live a basic lifestyle for some percentage of people, but the number depends on how many people you actually need to work. If more jobs get replaced by robots, the number of people we need to provide all the necessities of life goes down, and why shouldn't we allow more people to only work if they want to? The amount can start off modest and increase to the extent that things actually go that way.
- solatic 7y ago
  > Suppose that it's not, at scale. Then the work still needs to be done, so wage rise until it is enough for enough people. That's a really big and unfounded assumption. Especially here on HN it's a well-known trope that employers complain that they can't find any engineers when really they can't find any engineers at the price they're willing to pay. Not to mention that there are ceilings for the price of labor - the money for salaries doesn't come from thin air; it generally comes from higher prices. If prices can't raise to the level needed to support the necessary salary, the business and product simply won't exist. Whether this will result, under UBI, in creative destruction, a death spiral for the economy, or it simply won't be a problem at all since people will keep showing up to work anyway, is quite frankly a matter of faith at this point. > If you give the fisherman the first boat to begin with, he doesn't go out and build a fleet, but he's still a fisherman. But there is nothing wrong with being a fisherman. This is the basic trade off in having social programs at all instead of pure ruthless capitalism. Yes, there is something wrong with just being a fisherman. When the fisherman starts a business and grows a fishing fleet, the fisherman creates jobs. If the fisherman just stays a fisherman, those jobs never get created. If most people aren't working, you don't have a tax base to fund UBI (or any other social welfare program) in the first place. If people would rather not work, then adopting UBI is more likely to result in the collapse of the economy, not strengthen it. > Is it "optimal" for people to go home after work and play video games instead of working more? As a matter of fact, yes, because occasional rest and relaxation is an important part of sustaining yourself in the marathon that is your working years. If you wreck your work/life balance with no end in sight then you're going to burn out pretty quickly. > What about developing video games? What about growing tobacco, or mining coal, or building bombs? There are a lot more counter-productive things than sitting in a room and effectively doing nothing. UBI doesn't address any of these issues. They'd all still offer some kind of compensation anyway. If society deems them to be counter-productive, there are other means of countering them - tax policy etc. > It would be a great improvement if all it did was provide exactly the same level of support as existing welfare, but provided it in cash instead of with strings attached This is naive. Food stamps are intended to ensure that people are fed. Housing vouchers are intended to ensure that people have a roof over their heads. If you give people cash instead of food stamps and housing vouchers, people will either have food in their bellies and a roof over their heads, or they won't. If they won't then the moral case for UBI no longer exists (because the moral case for welfare programs will no longer exist). If they will then we're back to the original argument over whether UBI will motivate or demotivate people to work. That UBI costs much less to administer is more or less a fringe benefit compared to the risk that UBI poses to crashing the economy. > If more jobs get replaced by robots Much hype and lost in transit. Most of the gains in automation are due to growth in technology firms, not robots; most of the losses in manufacturing are due to globalization, not robots. There's little evidence showing this to be feasible.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> The question is whether even $20,000 is sufficient motivation for someone living that kind of lifestyle to return to work. Suppose that it's not, at scale. Then the work still needs to be done, so wage rise until it is enough for enough people. That seems like more of a benefit than a problem. > There's an old parable about a fisherman taking on debt to start a business to grow a fishing fleet so that he can eventually sell the business and retire to spend his days fishing. That's kind of the point. You want to go fishing but you don't have a boat. Boats are expensive and you don't have enough money. So you borrow money to buy five fishing boats so you can make enough back to own one of them outright. Then you do and you can go fishing. If you give the fisherman the first boat to begin with, he doesn't go out and build a fleet, but he's still a fisherman. But there is nothing wrong with being a fisherman. This is the basic trade off in having social programs at all instead of pure ruthless capitalism. Presumably the real problem is with the people who choose to do things that are totally useless/harmful rather than the people who choose to be fishermen. But is that really a novel problem? Is it "optimal" for people to go home after work and play video games instead of working more? What about developing video games? What about growing tobacco, or mining coal, or building bombs? There are a lot more counter-productive things than sitting in a room and effectively doing nothing. > How many people do you "write off" from participating in the economy? If the number is too low, and UBI doesn't really provide enough people with enough money to live a basic lifestyle, have you really made a difference at all with UBI? Your assumption seems to be that the purpose of a UBI is to provide people with a basic lifestyle with zero supplemental income. But it doesn't need to do that at all. There is no inherent requirement that it provide any given level of support. It would be a great improvement if all it did was provide exactly the same level of support as existing welfare, but provided it in cash instead of with strings attached, and had no phase out so that low and middle income working people received a little more at the expense of the rich. It could provide enough to live a basic lifestyle for some percentage of people, but the number depends on how many people you actually need to work. If more jobs get replaced by robots, the number of people we need to provide all the necessities of life goes down, and why shouldn't we allow more people to only work if they want to? The amount can start off modest and increase to the extent that things actually go that way.

solatic 7y ago
> Suppose that it's not, at scale. Then the work still needs to be done, so wage rise until it is enough for enough people. That's a really big and unfounded assumption. Especially here on HN it's a well-known trope that employers complain that they can't find any engineers when really they can't find any engineers at the price they're willing to pay. Not to mention that there are ceilings for the price of labor - the money for salaries doesn't come from thin air; it generally comes from higher prices. If prices can't raise to the level needed to support the necessary salary, the business and product simply won't exist. Whether this will result, under UBI, in creative destruction, a death spiral for the economy, or it simply won't be a problem at all since people will keep showing up to work anyway, is quite frankly a matter of faith at this point. > If you give the fisherman the first boat to begin with, he doesn't go out and build a fleet, but he's still a fisherman. But there is nothing wrong with being a fisherman. This is the basic trade off in having social programs at all instead of pure ruthless capitalism. Yes, there is something wrong with just being a fisherman. When the fisherman starts a business and grows a fishing fleet, the fisherman creates jobs. If the fisherman just stays a fisherman, those jobs never get created. If most people aren't working, you don't have a tax base to fund UBI (or any other social welfare program) in the first place. If people would rather not work, then adopting UBI is more likely to result in the collapse of the economy, not strengthen it. > Is it "optimal" for people to go home after work and play video games instead of working more? As a matter of fact, yes, because occasional rest and relaxation is an important part of sustaining yourself in the marathon that is your working years. If you wreck your work/life balance with no end in sight then you're going to burn out pretty quickly. > What about developing video games? What about growing tobacco, or mining coal, or building bombs? There are a lot more counter-productive things than sitting in a room and effectively doing nothing. UBI doesn't address any of these issues. They'd all still offer some kind of compensation anyway. If society deems them to be counter-productive, there are other means of countering them - tax policy etc. > It would be a great improvement if all it did was provide exactly the same level of support as existing welfare, but provided it in cash instead of with strings attached This is naive. Food stamps are intended to ensure that people are fed. Housing vouchers are intended to ensure that people have a roof over their heads. If you give people cash instead of food stamps and housing vouchers, people will either have food in their bellies and a roof over their heads, or they won't. If they won't then the moral case for UBI no longer exists (because the moral case for welfare programs will no longer exist). If they will then we're back to the original argument over whether UBI will motivate or demotivate people to work. That UBI costs much less to administer is more or less a fringe benefit compared to the risk that UBI poses to crashing the economy. > If more jobs get replaced by robots Much hype and lost in transit. Most of the gains in automation are due to growth in technology firms, not robots; most of the losses in manufacturing are due to globalization, not robots. There's little evidence showing this to be feasible.